News Round Up: World of Warcraft Loses Another 300k Subscribers and More

The awaited second-quarter call just happened and World of Warcraft is at 11.1 million subscribers, down another 300k from the last reported number. The previous quarter had reported a loss of 600k.

However, this doesn't mean revenues themselves are down or that Blizzard itself is in trouble. Gamasutra reported today on Activision Blizzard's second fiscal quarter earnings which were 53% higher than predicted. The company largely beat its expectations because of a large increase in digital sales company wide, which includes things like Blizzard's digital subscriptions and store. CEO Bobby Kotick followed up by saying that there would be continued investments in all of Blizzard's staple titles, including the upcoming unnamed MMO nicknamed Titan.

Diablo III Beta Test Approaches!

Remember to have your beta profile up to date so you can have a chance to be in the Diablo III beta!

The beta test approaches! We’ve just updated our System Check program and would like everyone to update their Battle.net Beta Profile information by running the new one. You should do this regardless of whether there have been hardware changes made to your system.

You can run the new System Check by visiting the Beta Profile settings of your Battle.net account:

I don’t have a Beta ProfileIf you haven’t yet created a Beta Profile on your Battle.net account you’ll be presented with two download options, PC and Mac, for our System Check program. Running the program will present you with the Beta Test Opt-In Agreement, and once you agree to that it will immediately query basic computer specification information such as your type of video card, processor, and RAM. Clicking the Send button will then upload the shown information to your account.

On your Beta Profile page, you’ll want to ensure you at least have “Diablo Universe” checked for future testing, if not StarCraft and Warcraft as well. That’s it! You’re now eligible for future beta test opportunities.

I have a Beta ProfileIf you’ve previously uploaded your system info you should use the links to download the new System Check program for PC or Mac and update your system info. Run the program, read through the Beta Test Opt-In Agreement that appears, and once you agree to that the program will immediately query your basic computer specification information. Click Send and the program will automatically update your profile with your system specifications. You’ll remain opted in for whichever beta tests you’ve previously selected, and you can change these selections on your Beta Profile page at any time.

Having current system specifications and checking the franchise boxes to express interest in beta testing our future products does not guarantee your entry into the beta test. We will grant a very limited number of people entry from the entire pool of those interested, based on their system specifications and other factors. While having an official Battle.net Beta Profile is one way to potentially get in, we’ll have information on other ways to increase your chances as we draw closer to the beta test.

Hatchling Sales Soared

So apparently the Cenarion Hatchling sold over $1.9 million USD worth of pets--that's almost 200,000 little guys and their generous owners! All of it went to charity as well, helping the victims from the Japan natural disasters.

Of course, the question remains: Did you buy one?

Thanks to the overwhelming generosity of World of Warcraft players around the world who purchased the Cenarion Hatchling pet, we’ve raised a total of more than $1.9 million USD to support the ongoing earthquake and tsunami relief efforts in Japan. In May, we announced that for every Cenarion Hatchling purchased by July 31, 2011, 100% of the $10 USD adoption fee would be going to assist victims of this disaster -- and the community responded by opening up their hearts and wallets wide. Thanks again for your support and for helping to make an impact on the lives of those affected by these events.

Comments

Comment by VSUReaper

on 2011-08-04T00:43:54-05:00

As a guildmate just said in guild chat: "All 300k were shaman." I lol'd.

LOL! Honestly, this kind of news does not surprise me at all. - TBC was middle of the road: neither to hard or to easy. The only short coming of it was only having 25 mans, making it difficult to transition from 5 mans and 10 mans unless you were connected.- WOTLK was to easy; it catered to the casuals that wanted to raid, wanted to feel special, wanted to have it all. It also created the uber-mega-asshat via the LFG due to no accountability or repercussions. - Cata was a knee jerk to WOTLK in terms of difficulty, as well as being full of empty promises. "We want mana to matter", "we want cc to matter", "we don't want classes stacking one stat above all others (I.e. Tanks stacked stam, now stack mastery)", "we want there to be options for people other than raiding (arch is mind numbingly boring, 5 mans are only fun if you havent done them a ton, and if you do them solo, it takes to log to get in and then finish).

Honestly, they are just shooting themselves in the foot at this point.

Comment by deathbeyond

on 2011-08-04T01:18:56-05:00

A lil food for thought with the losses....Those 2 quarters = a total 10.8million drop in revenue each month for Blizzard. And that's assuming that all 900k subs were using the 6month subscription. 13.5million at 15/month. While that may not seem too huge in the bucket of roughly 150million/month on the left over accounts, that is still a large amount. Because you can't balance the digital item sales more than once for most people, so once that's bought it's value is nothing if no one else wants to spend the cash on it.

Must....don....tinfoil hat!

Comment by Therulnig

on 2011-08-04T01:29:09-05:00

The sub losses isn't really new. It's mid-expansion so new people aren't going to be frequent. Most new accounts I would probably bet without having their data are most likely through the RAF program. Factor low new adds in with the people that only sub on new content months or that left for the Summer/etc and you could have predicted quite easily that they'd have lost subs lol.

Comment by Sinespe

on 2011-08-04T02:36:27-05:00

Subscription losses two reports in a row? How interesting. Maybe this will spur them to boot the B-team devs they have now, move the ones from Titan back over, and return to quality.

Ah, who am I kidding?

The question is, do we want Titan to be a half-assed game and have WoW suffer, or do we want our upcoming content to be half-assed and that Titan'll be awesome like nothing we've ever seen before?

Me, I think I'll go with Titan.

I'd rather they trained up their developers properly so that they had nothing but an A team.

But, y'know, maybe that's an unfair expectation.

It isn't

Comment by StaticLgtBrngr

on 2011-08-04T02:41:28-05:00

Poor solo content is likely another reason for the subscription rate drop, I had been saying since the cataclysm beta that there was not enough solo stuff to do at level 85, flying around doing archaeology gets boring fast especially when everyone is having better luck with the more useful solves than you are.

Then comes the subject of dailies, something the entirety of level 85 questing seems to have been based around yet has a stupid limit left on it. There is also the problem of having to grind marks and rep on every character in this new molten front zone for every stage of the event opposed to the likes of queldanas where it was unlocked in stages for everyone (including alts) as players worked through the various stages.

There is also very poor creature design in these areas. For example I will be minding my own business mining a node or some such then I will take a 50k boulder in the face from some giant I wasn't even in combat with, or have some lava pool hurled at me from a scorpion I wasn't, jumped on and pushed off a ledge by a char hound I was nowhere near.. Etc etc. Yet despite many server restarts and maintenance since these problems came to light, they remain unfixed.

These new rare hunter tame "challenges" clearly haven't been thought out properly because like the old world dragons / kazzak and such they are a griefers wet dream, strange that they discontinued world boss challenges because of griefing then added these a few months later.

Quest creatures these days are constantly being built with abilities that allow free hits from behind for no apparent reason except to cause annoyance, such as those pyrelords that spam summon tiny elementals behind you all the time as well as leaping / charging abilities. Spending most of my questing time dazed because of crap like this is something I find extremely irritating.

I am still sticking around for a while yet despite this but if future solo content continues to be done really half assed like cata has so far then it is a safe bet I too will be leaving before the end of the year.

Comment by shao

on 2011-08-04T04:02:13-05:00

I don't like the fact that you can succeed at this game simply via attrition.

it really depends on what your definition of success is. I think doing molten front dailies aren't what a lot of people would describe as succeeding in the world of warcraft, but equally for a lot of people it is. This is part of the problem, WoW is trying to be an MMO for everyone, from the 30minutes play time a day uber casual, to the hardcore 12 hours end-game progression raider, to ultra competitive PvP.. and that's fairly unsustainable, especially people at each end of the spectrum want to feel like they are progressing, and there is enough content and reward for them.

Sure, 4.2 has a fair amount of grind to it, but I'm guessing a lot of the people complaining about the molten front dailies probably weren't around for TotC, Sunwell, or the AQ world events, which also took a crazy amount of daily grinding to get through. By comparison 30minutes of easy daily quests aren't that bad, and represent a nice income for those struggling with earning gold.

Ultimately, I'm fine with people that don't like the game leaving.. it's better that they don't try to bend the game to their way by complaining about it on the forums and ruining it for all of us.

Comment by Archangel9885

on 2011-08-04T06:27:46-05:00

I was one of the lucky ones that bought my virtual ticket yesterday and then when i logged in later in the day i had deathy in my mailbox, i just hope blizz doesnt take him away from me now.

Comment by Neytirilover15

on 2011-08-04T10:04:00-05:00

I'm not surprised that WoW is losing more and more subscribers. I've been playing since Vanilla WoW, and I enjoyed every single minute of it until Cata came. WotLK was my favorite IMO. It was a new experience, an absolutely addictive ICC raid which i couldn't get enough of, and awesome Epic Gear. It was all spunky(if you will) and very nice eye-candy whether it came to gear, weapons, NPCs, environments, and mounts. My most favorite mount ever and that I have ever had, was the Mekgineer's Chopper which WotLK introduced. Everything was all good. Then Cata came. with very depressing environments, boring questlines, VERY VERY bland and unoriginal gear and weapons, and too many and unnecessary changes to classes that ruined them. With Patch 4.1, we get to revisit Zul' Aman and Zul'Gurub, which everyone already went through and no one wants to play in old raids. We were all looking for some new raids that were gonna blow our minds and make us rage at our computers every single time we died because of how complex and unique each fight was. In Cata, all there is to each fight is to watch where you're standing. It seems thats the main concern in each fight. Which isn't very challenging and exciting. I'm sorry Blizz. I don't hate you guys. you guys are geniuses. but what you've done with the game currently isn't going to appeal for very long (if it ever does). You guys did an amazing job with the other expansions, constantly bombarding us with fresh content. Don't think of this expansion as some kind of a break and everything will be fine come next expansion. No, you guys are gonna keep losing more and more subscribers unless you guys actually use the gifts you were given and restart implementing fresh and mind-blowing content. I already stopped playing and ended my subscription for my account for these very same reasons and even more. However, i didnt actually DELETE my account because if i ever do start playing again, my Choppa will be waiting for me. So please Blizz, change your direction because if you don't youre going down the road of many failed games in the past that died out because of bland content.

Comment by pain799

on 2011-08-04T10:12:08-05:00

300k are pissed at blizz for making ferals hard.skillfactorlol.

Comment by pain799

on 2011-08-04T10:12:45-05:00

I'm not surprised that WoW is losing more and more subscribers. I've been playing since Vanilla WoW, and I enjoyed every single minute of it until Cata came. WotLK was my favorite IMO. It was a new experience, an absolutely addictive ICC raid which i couldn't get enough of, and awesome Epic Gear. It was all spunky(if you will) and very nice eye-candy whether it came to gear, weapons, NPCs, environments, and mounts. My most favorite mount ever and that I have ever had, was the Mekgineer's Chopper which WotLK introduced. Everything was all good. Then Cata came. with very depressing environments, boring questlines, VERY VERY bland and unoriginal gear and weapons, and too many and unnecessary changes to classes that ruined them. With Patch 4.1, we get to revisit Zul' Aman and Zul'Gurub, which everyone already went through and no one wants to play in old raids. We were all looking for some new raids that were gonna blow our minds and make us rage at our computers every single time we died because of how complex and unique each fight was. In Cata, all there is to each fight is to watch where you're standing. It seems thats the main concern in each fight. Which isn't very challenging and exciting. I'm sorry Blizz. I don't hate you guys. you guys are geniuses. but what you've done with the game currently isn't going to appeal for very long (if it ever does). You guys did an amazing job with the other expansions, constantly bombarding us with fresh content. Don't think of this expansion as some kind of a break and everything will be fine come next expansion. No, you guys are gonna keep losing more and more subscribers unless you guys actually use the gifts you were given and restart implementing fresh and mind-blowing content. I already stopped playing and ended my subscription for my account for these very same reasons and even more. However, i didnt actually DELETE my account because if i ever do start playing again, my Choppa will be waiting for me. So please Blizz, change your direction because if you don't youre going down the road of many failed games in the past that died out because of bland content.

wotlk ftw, cata killed everything.

Comment by Azrile

on 2011-08-04T10:23:29-05:00

At this rate WoW will lose 1.8 million players a year. 900k lost in 2 quarters. 4 quarters a year. Also their touting 12 million accounts or whatever is extremely exaggerated. You can google search and see how out of those "12 mil" at least half are Chinese and they have delayed release of content so please keep in mind at best there were 6 million non chinese players on North American content before the decline. I quit wow back in november, came back in february and march, and quit again due to the utter boredom of rehashed grinding. I was going to give 4.2 a chance but after seeing it being just another grind and GC's utter disrespect to customers who pay his wages I'm done for good until he's gone at the very least. WoW is nothing more than a cash cow they are milking the hell out of people, if you don't like the game then don't PAY them for it! Once they start losing money, they may start listening to customers again and care about quality and not just money.

So your assumption is that half of the accounts WOW has are from china, but that ALL of the accounts that WOW lost are from the USA. I would argue (and correctly) that yes, half of the accounts are from china, but that more than half the accounts lost were from China. My proof? Profits went UP.!

GC only disrespects the dumb players who use anecdotal evidence to support their claim. " My raid leader sat me.. therefore, restro shaman need to be buffed"... or " I am a great pvper.. but I keep losing 50% of my matches, therefore my spec must be buffed and someone else must be nerfed". I personally think is too analytical and makes things too mathmatical to the point where there is no variance in anything we do. But I have never seen him be rude to players except when they are basically idiots. At which time, he just ignores them.

Comment by lankybrit

on 2011-08-04T10:25:33-05:00

300k more terribads leave the game. Good riddance. We can lose another 10M bads and I'd still be happy..

Wait....I'm not Elitest, wtf am I saying?

Cheers.

Comment by Azrile

on 2011-08-04T10:29:57-05:00

It is interesting and my in-game experiences are similar - people are giving up and walking away. Even myself, a self-confessed wow nut, has cut back the time spent because raiding just isn't happening for me (between finding a guild that raids at times suitable for me and needs my class etc).

People are not getting bosses down and the gap between the 'elite' and the 'average' raider is widening (I'm not talking about scrubs here). While content should not be easy, it should not be so difficult that quality, experienced raiders are now just throwing their hands up in frustration.

In regards to Titan, if that is a FPS, then I'm out. If I wanted a FPS, I'd go buy COD or something but I don't. I want a MMO (preferably a RPG). I've always said I'll re-evaluate my subscription every 6 months or so and I guess people are doing the same. It'll be interesting to see where numbers are at at years end - if it's down to 10 mil or so then the game is most definitely losing it's sheen.

*sigh*

That is exactly the point of why it is an FPS. Blizzard doesn´t want you to quit playing WOW to play Titan... instead they want all those people playing COD (for free) to pay a subscription. Check out Xfire... WOW is #1.. but 3 different versions of COD are all in the top 10 games played per week. That is why Blizzard is making Titan. They would love to have all those people paying $15-month just like WOW players do.

When Titan was conceived was when WOW was growing like crazy and the devs were not able to add servers fast enough. I am sure the business guys at Activision were looking at COD and thinking.. if only we could get them to pay $15 per month rather than just buy a $50 box once per year....

Right about now is probably when Blizzard is going to start thinking about a replacement for WOW. It has clearly reached it´s peak, but they probably have 4-5 really good years left... which is about how long it will take to make a replacment. The dev team at Blizz isn´t much bigger than other MMOs with far fewer subscribers. My guess is it is profitable all the way down to 1M subscribers.

Comment by Neytirilover15

on 2011-08-04T10:33:55-05:00

I'm not surprised that WoW is losing more and more subscribers. I've been playing since Vanilla WoW, and I enjoyed every single minute of it until Cata came. WotLK was my favorite IMO. It was a new experience, an absolutely addictive ICC raid which i couldn't get enough of, and awesome Epic Gear. It was all spunky(if you will) and very nice eye-candy whether it came to gear, weapons, NPCs, environments, and mounts. My most favorite mount ever and that I have ever had, was the Mekgineer's Chopper which WotLK introduced. Everything was all good. Then Cata came. with very depressing environments, boring questlines, VERY VERY bland and unoriginal gear and weapons, and too many and unnecessary changes to classes that ruined them. With Patch 4.1, we get to revisit Zul' Aman and Zul'Gurub, which everyone already went through and no one wants to play in old raids. We were all looking for some new raids that were gonna blow our minds and make us rage at our computers every single time we died because of how complex and unique each fight was. In Cata, all there is to each fight is to watch where you're standing. It seems thats the main concern in each fight. Which isn't very challenging and exciting. I'm sorry Blizz. I don't hate you guys. you guys are geniuses. but what you've done with the game currently isn't going to appeal for very long (if it ever does). You guys did an amazing job with the other expansions, constantly bombarding us with fresh content. Don't think of this expansion as some kind of a break and everything will be fine come next expansion. No, you guys are gonna keep losing more and more subscribers unless you guys actually use the gifts you were given and restart implementing fresh and mind-blowing content. I already stopped playing and ended my subscription for my account for these very same reasons and even more. However, i didnt actually DELETE my account because if i ever do start playing again, my Choppa will be waiting for me. So please Blizz, change your direction because if you don't youre going down the road of many failed games in the past that died out because of bland content.

wotlk ftw, cata killed everything.

Thank you, I actually decided to give WoW one last chance to see if it appealed to me with 4.2. They gave players 7 free days to come back and try out 4.2. As you can see, Blizz already know there's many players who left. I tried out 4.2 and from what I experienced, its all the same things that made me quit. The dailies just required you to grind and grind until you die of boredom. The environment is boring, and who would get straight into raiding the new Firelands dungeon in the 7 days they were given. I haven't heard anything of a positive attitude toward the latest content patch. And it doesnt surprise me.

Comment by pezz

on 2011-08-04T10:58:15-05:00

I'm greatly amused by how quickly people applied their rose-tinted spectacles to WotLK. Remember like, one year ago when about 90% of this forum hated Wrath? Now it was the last time WoW was ever good, and no one seems to remember what they thought of it when it was out.

Comment by Adamsm

on 2011-08-04T11:04:01-05:00

I'm greatly amused by how quickly people applied their rose-tinted spectacles to WotLK. Remember like, one year ago when about 90% of this forum hated Wrath? Now it was the last time WoW was ever good, and no one seems to remember what they thought of it when it was out.

Same thing about BC and Vanilla though.

Comment by LordBalrog

on 2011-08-04T11:11:05-05:00

I'm greatly amused by how quickly people applied their rose-tinted spectacles to WotLK. Remember like, one year ago when about 90% of this forum hated Wrath? Now it was the last time WoW was ever good, and no one seems to remember what they thought of it when it was out.

One year ago I was having the time of my life in WoW. I was in a casual raiding guild and we were slowly working our way through the Plagueworks bosses in ICC. I loved every minute of it, even the wipes. I've never enjoyed WoW as much as that, not before Wrath and not after.

Comment by Zurizen

on 2011-08-04T11:30:24-05:00

WoW is getting Brazilian and Japanese versions soon,that alone will offset these numbers. If not,then...well,what? Its a seven year old game so its going to start declining.

Comment by Reebs

on 2011-08-04T12:07:03-05:00

Everything declines, personally I'm going to keep playing this game to hang out with my guildies and friends I've made over 5 years of playing casually. It's a game after all, and even if it ends or I move on to something else, I'll still keep the fond memories. I do try not to gloom and doom over something that always happens inevitably (I mean, look at Everquest, WoW prob will keep going for at least another 3-5 at this rate minimum).

Comment by therailz

on 2011-08-04T12:14:01-05:00

excacto, the bell tolls for us all and even the mighty must one day fall